Leyna
by Alchemist Experiment
Summary: Alone and far from home, Lust attempts to forge a life for herself in the middle of poverty, destitution and a dying country. AU, ScarxLust, contains dark themes. Series and movie spoilers.


_**Disclaimer: **Fullmetal Alchemist and characters do not belong to me, no money is being made off of this._

_**Warnings:**__This story contains violence, strong language, recreational drug use, allusions to sex under the influence, prostitution, racism and hate crimes. If any of the previous offend or otherwise upset you, please do not read._

_**Author's Note: **This is an AU fic that ends at the same point and time as Conqueror of Shambala. _

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**Leyna **

The dressing room was cramped and smelled of old fabric and stale makeup. The walls were stained with gin and sweat and in places something darker that still smelled faintly of copper. Faded gowns and musty fur coats hung from a sagging rack against the wall and the lights above the mirror were cracked and flickering. At the vanity, a dark haired woman sat and blotted her face with white powder. If you weren't as pale as the dead, they wouldn't come to see you.

This was Berlin, 1921. Sex and sin were the pastimes of rich and poor alike - glamour girls and prostitutes searched for company on the streets and in the clubs, music and booze flowed freely from dusk until dawn and nightlife was the only life worth living.

"Leyna! Hurry up! You're on in two minutes!"

"I'm powdering my face," the woman called Leyna snapped, not liking to be rushed. She didn't like the flat chested girls with their bobbed hair and their raccoon eyes. She didn't like the way they dressed, the way they moved, or the crude way in which they spoke. She didn't like the small club where she worked, either, or the manager with his wandering eyes and his busy hands. But it was work, and she needed to work in order to eat. And the establishments that would hire a dark skinned woman were few and far between.

"So what are you, anyway?" The cigarette smoking blonde who called herself Fritzi had asked, when the woman called Leyna had shown up for her first night. "You a gypsy? You aren't one of those Arabs, are you?"

It had been a difficult question, the only answer to which the woman called Leyna had replied 'I'm not an Arab'.

It was Fritzi who was pestering her now, urging her to hurry up with her makeup. Fritzi who wore skirts that barely came to her knee, and who wore men's ties and cursed like a sailor. The woman called Leyna hated her.

The makeup was applied. Under the dim lights of the cheap nightclub, paired with a black dress, brown powdered skin looked white and pale. The woman called Leyna could pass for another German woman, rolling her hips and cocking her leg for the men - and some women - who came to drink and whore and forget the depression.

It was easy enough to ignore the floor of the club, to stand and sing and show her body and ignore the men who whistled and stamped their feet as the grew more and more drunk. She was nothing to them but a body - a beautiful, desirable body in black sleeveless satin. Some things, she decided, never changed.

Time passed in a blur. The woman called Leyna ignored the music, ignored the applause, ignored the rank smell of split liquor went through her routine in a daze. She strutted and undulated, her lithe body the only thing mattered, not her voice or her song. Afterwards she sank into the faded chair at the vanity and lit a cigarette.

Fritzi was gone. Most likely hanging off of some drunken man who would be loose with his money. It was what all of the girls did. The woman called Leyna refused. She pulled on one of the old fur coats and left, slipping out into the Berlin night like a wraith. Men called to her but she ignored them. Poor she may be, but she refused to whore herself. It would be easy money, she knew, but she clung to what scraps of pride she had left.

Her squalid flat reflected her squalid life. It wasn't much different from the dressing room at the club - a cramped space that smelled of sweat and death. She kicked the radiator to encourage it to heat the small room and stripped off her clothing.

In the dim light, she inspected her body. Smooth fawn colored skin was all she saw, marred across her left hip by a wide pink slash of healing skin. The doctors had told her it was from a knife wound and she could only take their word for it. She hadn't remembered, upon waking up in a chemical smelling room, how she had acquired it. All she remembered was dying.

They told her that she had been a victim of an attack, violence against 'people of her type' were becoming common. She was lucky to have lived, they told her. None of it had made sense and they told her that she had suffered head trauma as well. It was easier to go along with them than to argue. She never regained her supposed memory, and they had given her a name and a small amount of money and sent her on her way. She had been lucky, she realized, that they were religious of sorts.

That had been over a month ago. The woman known as Leyna - who still called herself Lust in her own mind - had yet to discover why she was here - human and in a body that was not entirely hers - and not dead as she should have been. Perhaps homunculi never did die. Whatever the reason, she had made herself what living she could in Berlin. It was a strange world, but not entirely unlike her own.

She supposed that the body she inhabited was that of a gypsy woman. There were no Ishbalans here - there were Arabs, but none in Germany. She powdered her face and slicked her hair and wore the fashions of a Berlin woman, and few questioned her. She didn't have the baring of a gypsy woman, and people would see what they wanted to see.

Heat finally began to rise in the small flat. Lust pulled off her stockings and sank naked onto her flat mattress, exhausted and worn from the long day. Fritzi would be by tomorrow, to drag her out shopping and gossiping. Lust couldn't stand the younger woman but tolerated her company for reasons she couldn't decipher. Perhaps she was simply lonely. And men didn't bother her as much when she was with company. They seemed to think that she and Fritzi were a pair. Which wasn't surprising considering the way Fritzi hung off of her and used words that Lust was used to only men using.

It was amazing, the way the mind adjusted. Lust had picked up the culture, the politics, all those things that floated about and fit in seamlessly in this world. She spoke their slang, she wore their clothes, she stood in line for her over-priced meat, came home to her impoverished flat and lived the typical life of a struggling singer. She froze at night, went hungry when she had to, and went through the night with listless apathy. On more than one occasion she wondered if this was hell. But it was far too alive to be hell.

"I rather wish," Lust said aloud to the ceiling, "that I had died."

center /center

"Hey! Hey Leyna! Wake up!"

Lust rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes, finding herself staring into the blue, raccoon circled eyes of Fritzi.

"Uh," she muttered, throwing an arm over her eyes. What time was it? Surely Fritzi was early. She couldn't have slept that late. No, Fritzi was early and her annoying qualities were doubled any time before noon. "Take your face and go."

"Are you arsing me? We're going shopping. Come on, get dressed! God, Leyna, you're such a lazy kotze!" Fritzi shook Lust, and then snatched the covers off of her when there was no response.

"Let me sleep!" Lust snarled, sitting up and snatching her covers back. She had no desire to have Fritzi leering at her.

"It's eleven in the morning. You slept enough." Fritzi had hopped off of the bed now and was tossing clothing at Lust. "Sun's up, men are out and we don't have anything to do until sundown."

"I would be quite content to sleep until sundown," Lust protested as she shrugged on her corset. Fritzi made a face - the younger woman hated the old-fashioned and figure enhancing undergarment. Lust refused to bind her breasts as was the fashion, abhorring loose camisoles and the side lacing brassieres that were so common. Why the men of this place and time preferred their women to look like young boys, she would never know.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep. All you want to do is sleep, and you never want to do it with anyone else. You're such a drag."

"Then why do you insist on dragging me out with you?" Lust pulled a drop waisted dress on and pinned up her hair.

"I'm just trying to get you to loosen up, that's all. You should have a drink before we get going."

"It's not even noon. I'm not going to drink." Fritzi, Lust could tell, was already half-way drunk herself. Lust powdered her face quickly, growing impatient with Fritzi's huffing and sighing.

"Finally!" Fritzi leapt up, her thin cigarette dangling from her lips. Lust said nothing, just followed the younger woman out into the street. It was a hazy day, bitter and grey and altogether suiting Lust's current mood. Her fur coat did little to keep out the chill. Fritzi didn't seem to mind, but Fritzi was warmed with her morning cocktail.

"You ever wear anything other than black?" Fritzi asked as she shimmied and twirled along the sidewalk, looking into the storefront windows and flipping her bobbed hair.

"No."

"You ought to. You'd look keen in red. One of those shiny numbers with the fluttery hems - you know the type."

Lust ignored the girl and let her eyes pass over the storefront windows. Berlin, despite its depression, was clinging to the high life it so adored. Everything was bright, opulent; as though they could force a change in state merely by acting as though all was good and happy.

"You know," Fritzi went on, undaunted by Lust's silence, "if you weren't a gyppo, I bet you could be in the pictures."

"I am not a gypsy," Lust said, still distracted by the storefronts.

"You sure look like you are. Under the powder, anyway."

Again, Lust didn't answer. The body was most likely gypsy in origin, but she was no gypsy.

"I mean, you don't act like one. You act like you're the fucking queen of Sheba, actually, but you don't act like a gypsy. Where do you come from, anyway? You never said."

"Far away," was the only answer Lust was prepared to give. "From a place where there are no gypsies."

"I can arse myself, you know," Fritzi snapped, rolling her eyes in plain disbelief. Lust only shrugged. She didn't care what Fritzi thought of her. The girl was a gutter mouthed whore. The only thing that they had in common was the sad state of their lives. They were both poor, struggling, and trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and despair.

A few hours later, Fritzi wandered off to go drinking with some young man, and Lust returned to her flat to prepare for another night of mindless distraction.

center /center

Hangovers, Lust decided, weren't worth it. She squinted her eyes against the dim sunlight, her head pounding and her mouth feeling like a dead rat. Alone in her flat, her stockings rolled down and her corset unlaced, she had sought out the unopened bottle of gin that Fritzi had gifted her with the week before. It had been a stupid thing to do, an act of depressed desperation, and she regretted it now. But sitting on her bed, looking at the street below, she had been seized with a pang of longing and hopelessness.

This wasn't her home. This wasn't her world. All she had wanted was to be human, to win the love of a man that she was inexplicably drawn to. Without him, she had wanted to die. She had embraced death as Sloth's pathetic brat had stood over her, taunting her. And even that, such a simple and unremarkable thing, had been denied her. She had awoken, in pain and in a strange body and a strange place. It wasn't fair.

Drinking herself into oblivion had seemed like a promising course of action. Promising, as it turned out, only until she was no longer drunk.

This life that she had found herself in was misery. How could the women that she worked with actually enjoy this life? Or were they looking for an out in all the men they took home? Perhaps. But there was no out, not that Lust could see. All that she saw before her was a string of dismal cabarets and clubs, leering men and empty bottles of gin.

Lust dragged herself out of bed, cursing her pounding head and her now-upset stomach. There would be no breakfast this morning - which was alright, she didn't have any food anyway. She poured herself a glass of water from the tap and fought to keep it down. She could swear now all she wanted that she wouldn't drink like that again, but she knew it was a lie. It had been good, while the gin numbed her mind and chased away her fears and doubts.

What had become of her? She sat back down on her mattress, her head in her hands. She was better than this. She deserved a better life than this. But how in god's good name was she supposed to find one?

She could leave, she supposed. Leave the club, leave the flat, leave Berlin and Germany altogether. Life was bound to be better somewhere else. This world was full of countries. She could find another one.

For the moment, however, she needed to cure her hangover. The water helped some. She lay back on her bed, letting her head rest. The room ceased to spin after a few minutes. Surely a train ticket wouldn't be that expensive. She had a bit of money saved up. Not much, though. It was never anything she'd had to worry about before. Never before had she been troubled by concerns such as where she would live or how she would eat.

"Leyna!"

The pounding on her door sent another spike of pain through her head. Why was Fritzi here?

"Go away." She didn't want to deal with the girl. She wanted to wallow in misery for a few more hours.

"We're going to a moving picture, get up!"

"We aren't going anywhere." Lust pulled on a dressing gown and opened the door with bleary eyes.

"Shit! What happened to you?" There was a touch of actual concern in Fritzi's voice. How nice.

"Hangover," Lust said, returning to her bed.

"Is that all?" Fritzi bounded in after her. "I know the cure for that!"

"Oh?"

"Drink some more!"

Lust groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. But Fritzi was on her, dragging her out of bed as she was wont to do. There was no use protesting. Lust's fingers itched, and she knew she wanted to extend her nails and impale the bothersome girl against the wall. But she couldn't.

"I don't want to go out today," Lust protested, weakly. Fritzi was shoving her into clothes, brushing her hair, and doing what she could to make Lust presentable. This was all there was, she realized. Shopping and moving picture shows and drinking and men. None of these girls were looking for outs, they didn't think there was an out. It was disgusting.

"No moping," Fritzi insisted. "There, you're almost all ready to go."

Lust decided against arguing that she didn't want to go. At least a moving picture would be quiet and dark, and she could nap.

"Here, powder your face real good today." Fritzi thrust the powder at Lust.

"Why?"

"There's gypsies in town. Passing through, I guess. They came round the club this morning looking for work." Fritzi wrinkled her nose.

"I see." Lust powdered her face as usual and pulled on her opera gloves. It was easier to hide her body in the day rather than powder it.

"Alright, come on. I The Cabinet of Dr Caligari /I 's playing a couple of blocks over. It's supposed to be a real scream."

As was usual, Lust didn't respond. Unless Fritzi asked her a direct question, she tended to ignore the girl. At least it was another hazy day. Lust didn't think that she could take bright sunlight. Had the sun ever been bright in Berlin, she wondered?

The city was broken. Under the bright lights and the overly-loud laughter and the booze and jazz, Berlin was a broken city. Lust had seen cities like this before. She'd I made /I cities like this. It was a dying place, but at least it seemed to be going out with a song. She didn't plan to stick around to see it into its coffin.

"…and Zelda burned her fucking eyebrows off! She tried to paint some on with her eyeliner, but she's got a shitty hand and she fucked the whole thing up. You should have seen it. Leyna! Leyna, are you even listening to me?"

"No."

"You never listen to me! Stupid kotze."

"You never shut up."

"And you never say a fucking thing worth saying," Fritzi snapped. "Queen of fucking Sheba, you think you are. You aren't any better than the rest of us, Leyna. You're just another fucking gyppo slut!"

The slap of Lust striking Fritzi's cheek resounded in the street. Heads turned to look but quickly looked away again, assuming a lover's quarrel. Lust's face remained impassive, her eyebrows drawn down and her lips set in a thin line. It had felt good to slap the girl.

"I'm sorry." Fritzi cast her eyes down and rubbed her cheek. "But you've got this fucking high and mighty attitude…"

"That's enough."

"Yeah. Sorry." Fritzie wrinkled her nose - a trait she probably thought was endearing - and started to walk away. But she stopped, a horrified look coming over her face. "Ugh, fucking shit!"

"What is it?" Lust turned her head to see what had caused Fritzi's distress. Ah. Gypsies. Lust knew them by their fawn colored skin - so much like her own - their dark hair and their poor state of dress. They did indeed look a rag tag group, their simple spun clothing out of place in Berlin. She shook her head as she watched them, hardly seeing what the fuss was. But then one of them turned, a tall man with broad shoulders and steel-dark hair, and Lust felt her legs buckle beneath her.

"Leyna! Come I on /I ! People are going to think you're one of them!" Fritzi was pulling her arm, tugging her desperately, afraid to be seen with the woman who was staring at the gypsies. For such a waifish girl, Fritzi was strong. Lust was dragged away down a side street, protesting weakly, and then the gypsies were gone.

But before she had seen the flash of startled recognition on the man's face - the man's face that she would recognize anywhere, even without the decussated scar across his forehead and eyes.

center /center

"What the hell was that back there?" Fritzi stood with her hands on her hips, a sprite of a demon in front of the moving pictures theater. Her heavily painted lips were turned down in an unpleasant scowl.

"Nothing," Lust said softly. She looked over her shoulder, but all that she saw were Berliners.

"Yeah right, tell me another one." Fritzi glared. Her eyes became glaring black holes.

"I thought I knew that man." The words came out quietly and hesitantly, as though Lust were testing them. She wasn't entirely unused to the occasional familiar face - she had sworn she'd seen a man who wore Pride's face, outside of a theater one day. But she had seen the look on that man's face. He had recognized her, just as she'd recognized him.

"Stay away from the fucking gyppos, Leyna!" Fritzi shook her head.

Lust avoided Fritzi's gaze. How could he be here? He was human; not like her. Perhaps that man who looked like him had known the woman who's body Lust now inhabited? Or perhaps it hadn't been recognition on his face but surprise at seeing her attempt to pass herself off as a German woman. Nothing more than racial outrage and upset. That made far more sense than the idea that it truly was her scarred man.

Lust followed Fritzi into the theater and sat in silence, not paying any attention to the film. She couldn't banish his face from her mind. And she couldn't banish the idea that he had recognized her. Not the body, but I her /I .

She needed to find him. She could shake Fritzi off easily and it would be a simple thing to track down a pack of gypsies. They weren't exactly keeping a low profile here in Berlin. They couldn't blend into the crowds. At least, once she'd found him, she'd know. Whether he had recognized her from another life or from this one.

After the film, Lust attempted to extract herself from Fritzi's claws. She still felt rather miserable, but her head had stopped pounding quite so hard and she didn't feel as though she'd vomit anything she ate. But Fritzi would not be shaken.

"We're gonna get some food in you," Fritzi insisted, never letting go of Lust's wrist. The girl was a menace. Or perhaps the girl was perceptive. Either way, it was a bother. Lust wasn't going to have any time before work to slip off and find the gypsy man. She listened with half an ear to Fritzi's rambling, her mind still miles and years away. She picked at her food, drank little of the fizzy drink that Fritzi ordered her, and sank into the chair of her dressing room in a listless daze.

"What's wrong with Leyna?"

"She's got a hangover," Fritzi said matter-of-factly.

"Well, she better get a little spring in her step." It was a red headed woman named Ilse who spoke now. "Here, Leyna. This'll take care of it."

"What is it?"

"Just a little pick me up," Ilse said, pressing a pill into Lust's hand. "Trust me, you'll feel like a million after taking it."

Anything was better than feeling the way she did now. Lust knocked back the pill with a swig of stale gin. She fixed up her makeup and was hustled out on stage, already feeling better. Whatever Ilse had given her had certainly done the trick. The lights seemed particularly hot tonight, and Lust found herself sweating as she gyrated on stage, flipping her skirt and tossing her hair. Her heart was racing. But she felt I good /I . She breathed heavily, and for the first time since she'd started working in the place, she descended the stairs from the stage as the other girls were prone to do. She wanted to dance. Her heart was still racing but she gave it no thought. Her head no longer hurt, her stomach felt fine and she felt alive. She felt something of her old self now, her heart fluttering and her body demanding to move. Perhaps this life wasn't so bad, after all.

She danced with the men that usually disgusted her, letting them run their hands over her body. She smiled at them, pressed herself against them, whispered promises into their ears. Their hands felt good on her, and the wild music teased her into a frenzy. She was slick with sweat now, and sometime during the night Ilse pressed another pill into her hand and Lust took it without a thought. If it made her feel good, she would take whatever it was the red haired woman offered. She was tired of feeling miserable.

center /center

The morning came with sudden brightness. Lust opened her eyes, her mouth dry and her stomach once again heaving. She was naked in her bed and she wasn't alone. She could feel the cold stain of semen drying between her legs and the bed smelled of man and sweat. What in god's good name had happened?

She rose from the bed, her unnamed partner snoring on his side beside her. None of the lively, passionate feeling of the night before remained. Without thinking, she found the man's clothing and pawed through them, taking his money and the gun she found tucked into his belt. She didn't know how to shoot one but she knew how to sell one. She moved to her tiny bathroom and turned the tap of the rusted claw-foot bathtub. She lit a cigarette. She tried to ignore the sounds of breathing that came from the other room.

What had she done? Or, more accurately, I why /I had she done it? The tub filled with tepid water and Lust slipped into it, her cigarette still hanging from her lips. She washed herself in a daze, remembering now that she had brought the man home, let him have his way with her, hadn't even asked him for money. Even out of her mind, she wasn't a whore. She scrubbed her skin, trying to wash off the feel of him. She could hear him moving now, the rustling of clothing as he dressed.

"Leyna?" Whoever he was, he sounded hung over. Good.

"I have a headache," she said. "Get out."

There was no response. She was just a glamour girl, a seedy nightclub singer who probably brought home a different man every night. She could even have a boyfriend, one who wouldn't take kindly to another man in his woman's flat. She saw the dun sitting on the edge of her sink and she thought about using it. In her mind's eye she could see herself pulling the trigger, see the blood burst forth on the man's chest, see him fall. He would lay, dead on her floor with glazed eyes, his blood staining the wood. And she would smile. But then there was the click of the door shutting and the moment was gone.

center /center

"You know, it's nice to see you perking up a bit." Fritzi was trying on hats, turning this way and that way in the mirror. Lust made a noncommittal noise of agreement. Ilse's pick-up pill was working its way through her system, chasing away the pain and drear of daily life.

It was snowing outside. Lust was wrapped in her fur coat, a scarf tucked around her neck and a floppy hat pulled down over her ears. The cold still slipped in, and she and Fritzi had taken refuge in a small boutique. The pill did its magic, Lust's mood improving and her heart speeding and a nervous energy creeping over her.

"Fuck. It's not getting any warmer out. Come on, let's just hang around the club until it's time to work." Fritzi returned her own hat to her head and trudged out into the snow. Lust followed, her fur coat damp with melted snow.

"Shit. Can you believe those damn gyppos are still hanging around?" Fritzi rolled her eyes.

"I don't imagine they could go far in this weather," Lust said, her eyes narrowing as she sought out the huddled group of wandering folk in the mouth of an alley. There he was. His head was bent, snow collected in his steel hair, a ratty blanket wrapped around his shoulders. She wet her lips, her mouth dry and tasting like cotton. The flutter of her heart was due to more than just the pills.

"You're staring again, you silly kotze." Fritzi shook her head. "Come on."

But he looked up. Had he felt her eyes on him? Again, that flash across his face. He straightened and pushed through the group of gypsies that were grouped together for warmth. He was coming towards her, his gate swift and his eyes not entirely friendly. Lust didn't care. She was frozen, her eyes wide and her hat brim gathering snow.

"Shit, shit, shit! Leyna, come on. We've gotta go, now!" Fritzi was tugging her frantically and calling for aide.

"You." It was the only word that Lust heard. She opened her mouth to speak, not sure if he meant her or the woman who's body she held. But Fritzi was pulling her and Lust's shoes slid on the ice and snow, and people were moving between them, quick to defend the poor German woman from the maddened gypsy.

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"What the fuck's the matter with Leyna I now /I ?"

Lust ad refused another pill. She was achy and cold, the sleeveless beaded dress she now wore doing little to cover her skin from the draft.

"She was almost attacked by a fucking gyppo!" Fritzi announced. "God, I was so scared! He came right at us! He had fucking murder in his eyes, swear it! Poor Leyna just froze, she was terrified!" She seemed to enjoy telling of their harrowing adventure. Lust only stared at her reflection. Her swept back hair, held with a comb. Her dark eyes, her powdered skin, her unmarked chest above the collar of her dress. Terror! No, never for him.

"Not surprised." Ilse set down a handful of pills on the vanity but said nothing. The girls milled about, ignoring the woman that they called Leyna. Lust felt a sudden surge of hatred for them. They were disgusting things, all of them. She felt as though now, thrown into the midst of human life, that she understood why Envy had hated the creatures so. What was there to like about most of them? And she had wanted to I be /I one of them. She I was /I one of them now. And she hated it. She hated everything about it. The cramped dressing room felt as though it were closing in on her, the faded walls and cracked glass glaring reminders of what she had become. Outside there were men waiting to leer at her and perhaps approach her later, to entice her to their beds with the promise of a few marks. And beyond that was a cold and empty bed in a drafty and leaking flat that smelled of sweat and death.

"I'm leaving," she said suddenly, standing and swiping her hand across the vanity table, knocking bottles and pots of cosmetics to the floor. Some of them shattered, spilling paint and powder across the floor like a tide of multi-colored blood. Smatters of powder clung to the skirt of her black beaded dress, drops of liquid mascara hung like rain on the fringes at her hem. She didn't care.

"Leyna! What the fuck's the matter with you?" Fritzi stood in her rolled stockings and her side lacing brassiere, looking small and frail in the harsh and flickering light. Her heavy makeup made her look less like a raccoon now and more like a dead thing.

"I'm leaving," Lust said again, tossing her head and throwing her shoulders back.

"Hey! Queen, get your arse out on stage."

A queen, they called her. Lust smiled, a cruel and humorless curving of her lips. She would show them a queen.

"I am leaving," she repeated for the third time. How many times would she have to say it? Or perhaps she was saying it for her own benefit. She snatched her coat from the rack and flung it about her shoulders. "I wouldn't stay in this squalid hell hole another moment if you offered to give it to me. I hate all of you."

"Now you just shut your mouth, you dumb kotze, or I'll…." He was moving towards her now, the manager of this pathetic dive. Lust struck at him as he advanced with curved fingers, her nails catching his cheek and drawing blood. She dragged her nails over his skin, tearing at the soft and paunchy flesh of his face. One of the girls screamed. Glass littered the floor now, dagger sharp shrapnel that tore through the thin fabric of slippers. Real blood spilled across the floor now. Lust shoved passed the manager and out into the club. She ignored the yelling and commotion behind her, her head still held high. She heard the words called out behind her - I 'filthy gyppo kotze/I - but she ignored it. She drew looks as she threw open the door and one or two men made as though to approach her. Something about her - maybe the look in her eyes or the blood on her fingers - stopped them. She strode out into the night, feeling better than she had in over a month.

center /center

"I'm looking for a group of gypsies," Lust said, leveling her dark gaze at the man behind the pawn shop.

"You don't want to go looking for trouble, Fräulein. I heard one of them went after one of our women today."

Lust smiled, her cruel smile. "I know," she said, pulling out the gun from the pocket of her fur coat. "It was me."

"Hey now, there's some things better left to the police."

"The police?" Lust gave a little laugh. "They have no money to go bothering gypsies." She could read this fat, sweaty pawn shop owner well. "The police will not protect us. Where are they?"

Doubt and hesitation flickered in his piggish eyes. He was frightened. Good. Frightened men made stupid decisions.

"They've got a camp out behind the big theater," he finally said. "Here, you be careful, Fräulein."

"I will be," Lust promised, dropping a mark note on the counter and slipping back into the night. She didn't intend to use the gun. But she needed a reason to be seeking out disreputable sorts. She wound her way through the maze of Berlin's streets, the wet slush soaking through her slippers and chilling her feet. The manager's blood had caked under her fingernails.

The saw the dead lights of the big theater. The back alley, she knew from her own wanderings with Fritzi, was sheltered and spacious. No wonder they had taken up behind there.

Noises filtered out of the alley mouth. Lust tossed her head to shake it free of a few clinging flakes and entered the side street. The sounds became clear and suddenly she started to run, slipping on the slick stone. The cold burned her.

"… away from our women!"

The gypsies were pressed against the back of the theater. Women crouched and whimpered. One man lay on the ground, bleeding from the head. But the man, the man with the steel hair and the grim face was standing, his shirt torn and blood trickling down his shoulder. Unconsciously, Lust looked to his arm, seeking out the designs of the transmutation circle burnt into his skin. It wasn't there, of course.

The attackers were Berliners. Working class men armed with kitchen knives and clubs. But the steel haired man was unarmed and looked to be tiring. He would fall before these men.

Lust skidded to a stop and pulled out the gun, its weight and shape unfamiliar in her hand. She didn't even know if it was loaded, didn't know how to shoot it, but she aimed it at the back of the Berliner with the raised club, the one who was going to bring it down on the steel haired man's head and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out loud and clear in the alleyway. All eyes turned to Lust. All except for the eyes of the man who fell, blood blossoming on the back of his coat like a dying rose. A woman screamed and Lust swung the gun, pointing it at the Berliner with the knife. She squeezed again and the man, in shock perhaps, didn't move until he fell.

"The gyppo bitch has a gun!" That broke the spell. The others ran, fright turning them weak and foolish. The snow behind the theater was red with blood now, slow spreading stains. Lust stood like a statue, the gun still raised, until the 'brave' men had fled, leaving her alone in the alley with the huddling gypsies and the man she had been seeking.

"They're going to come back," Lust said coolly, finally lowering the gun. "With better weapons and stronger men."

"You." It was the same word he had spoken to her before, when the snow still fell and the day not yet gone.

"I suppose," Lust said with a shrug, "that depends on which 'you' that you mean. As it is, we don't have time for this. We need to run."

He looked as though he was going to say something more but he nodded. The women were on their feet now, and he lifted the bleeding man onto his shoulders. Lust led the way, winding through back alleys and darkened side streets. No one spoke a word. How sad these people were, that they trusted her so easily.

"Here." They came to rest behind a factory, soaked and panting and frightened. The steel haired man broke a window and ushered them inside. He still hadn't spoken to her, but he didn't need to. All she needed to know was in the way that he moved, in the set of his jaw. Somehow, it was him.

The women tended to the injured man. Lust didn't think he would die, but she knew little of wounds. She leaned against the wall of the abandoned factory, dripping water from her coat and smeared cosmetics from her dress. He came to her, then.

"It is you."

"Yes." Lust shrugged.

"How?"

"I died." It was said simply enough. "But I suppose my kind never really do. And you? The last time I saw you…"

"I don't know what happened." He cut her off, looking away from her. "I woke up…"

"Here," she supplied. "Were you wounded?"

"How did you…?"

"When I first became aware," Lust said, pulling out a soggy cigarette and attempting to coax it to life, "I was in a hospital. This body had suffered fatal wounds."

"What work is this?" he asked, though not to her. She only shrugged.

"I don't know. Perhaps we neither one of us truly wanted to die. It doesn't matter now. We need to leave the city. They'll be looking for us."

"And go where?" His eyes flashed anger. "We have been driven from our homes…"

"Now isn't the time for righteous indignation," Lust chided. "We'll go to the border, and then leave the country. I've been wanting to, for some time now."

"And how will we do that?"

"Steal an automobile in the night. It isn't difficult. We can be gone before morning."

"Why are you helping us?" His eyes were narrowed in suspicion. Lust laughed.

"You really have to ask? You are a fool." Lust wrapped her arms around herself and said nothing more for a good while. He remained there, standing and looking at her with something akin to hate in his eyes. He hated her still, then. Even after the stolen moment they had shared in Lior, he hated her still.

"What are you called here?"

"What?"

"What are you called? I can't very call you Scar anymore, can I?" A smiled played about the corner of her lips. He only stared at her. "Or I suppose I can."

"And you? What is it they call you?" It was the friendliest thing he had said to her so far.

"They call me Leyna. I call myself Lust."

"Then that is the name I will call you by." Without another word he turned to attend to the injured man. An hour later, they stole a car and left the city.

center /center

The roads were hard to travel. They stopped at a roadside inn, the innkeeper surly until Lust produced money. Money would buy room and food and a blind eye. She bedded down with the gypsy women, who sang and laughed as though they weren't fleeing for their lives. They gave Lust clean clothing and welcomed her as one of them, joking with her and brushing her hair and urging her to sing with them. She looked like one of them, didn't she? And she had saved their lives. They were pleasant enough company, a far cry from Fritzi and the glamour girls of Berlin.

But she excused herself and took a moment alone in the hall, wrapped in gypsy skirts and clean of cosmetics.

She heard him gasp before she saw him. She looked up at him and smiled, knowing well what he saw. A dark skinned woman in draping folds with thick black hair and dark eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, shoulder raised in a half shrug.

"What for?"

"For not being her." Lust looked down at her hands. "It seems you were right. Even human, I'm still me."

"I knew you would never be her."

"Yes, we've been over that." Lust turned her head to him, leaning against the wall. "I am… pleased to see you well."

"Don't."

"Don't?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"You can't stay with us." He turned away from her now, his fists clenched.

"Why not? Is it because I look like her?"

"Yes!" He pressed his fist against the wall, shoulders shaking. "You wear her face. Even here."

"It's my face as well," Lust snapped. "And I can't do anything about it."

"I do not wish to care for you!"

"Then don't." The words came out flat and dry. Lust wrapped her shawl around her, head titled up like the queen she was so often called in Berlin. "If can't separate a face from a person…"

"It would be a sin."

"There are worse things in life than sins." Lust stepped towards him. "You jumped in front of bullets for me, once. You bared your soul to me…"

"And I regret it." But Lust heard little truth in his words. She laid a hand over his, standing beside him in the dim light of the hallway.

"Take me out of the country, then. I'll leave you once we're beyond Germany's borders. I can't stay inside the country now."

"I know. Fine. To the borders of Germany, but no further." He pulled his hand away and turned to his room.

"Thank you. Goodnight, Scar." The border of Germany was a long journey ahead of them.

center /center

"It's broken down again?" The snow had melted now, and Lust folded her arms as she stood on the side of the road. The old automobile was making putting noises and Scar was prodding around inside of it with a tool of some sort. "Is it out of petrol?"

"It isn't out of petrol." Scar stood and wiped his hands on his already soiled trousers. "It's going to take hours to fix."

"We have hours." Lust shrugged. As long as it could be fixed, she didn't care how long it took. It was beginning to grow warm. She and the gypsy women had gathered plants along the edge of the road and in the field beyond. They were clever women, well versed in the lore of nature.

"If you don't have anything better to do than stand there, help me."

Lust nodded and stared into the tangled metal of the inside of the automobile. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Hand me something when I ask for it. From that box." He bent over again and pointed. Lust shrugged and waited for instructions. She knew next to nothing about machines. It was pleasant enough, standing in the weak sunlight and watching him work. They had been traveling for a few days now, and he hadn't bothered to remind her that she was leaving them when they left the country. The women accepted her gladly - she had even learned their names. And perhaps he was beginning to accept her as well.

He said nothing except to describe the tools to her as he asked for them. She handed him the various metal objects as he clinked and cursed in his effort to fix whatever was wront. Other automobiles passed on the road, but not stopped to help. One threw a bottle at them, cursing rudely. Lust cursed right back.

"There." Scar stood and wiped his hands. Lust offered him a drink of water. She signaled to the others, calling them back to the machine. He looked at her for a long time and the sun was in his eyes so she couldn't read them. Finally he spoke.

"Thank you." It was a low grumble, almost a growl, but Lust smiled and hopped into the front seat of the car. She always sat beside him as he drove and he had yet to complain about her presence beside him. The women in the back hummed and laughed, and Lust yawned. It had been a long day. Scar looked at her and grunted, and lowered his shoulder a fraction of an inch. Lust smiled and rested her head against it.

center /center

"We're stopping for the night." Scar pulled the car over. The money had run out and no inn would take them. The women built a fire by the side of the road and Lust spread out blankets - stolen from inns where the proprietor had given her trouble. They ate a paltry meal of old meat and dry fruit. The man who had been injured pulled out a stringed instrument and the women hummed and sang, and Lust rested her head against Scar's shoulder. He never pushed her away, though he didn't show any sign that he welcomed the contact.

"We're beyond Munich," he said, quietly. "We're reaching the border."

"We'll be in Austria," Lust said, shifting to get more comfortable. "And I suppose I'll be leaving you then."

"I promised to take you to the border. No further."

"I know." Lust sighed. She loved him, she knew that she did. She had loved him before this place, loved him enough to risk her master's wrath to be with him. It had been a silly dream, she supposed. "What will you do?"

"I don't know." He shifted then, and Lust felt a hand on her thigh, hesitant and cautious. Even through layers of skirts, Lust could feel the warmth of his skin. She turned her face into his shoulder, breathing his scent. Yes. She loved him.

"I am sorry," she said again, though she didn't sound particularly so. She was more sorry for herself.

"No. You spoke the truth. There's nothing you can do. You don't remind me of her any longer." His words faded into the night and Lust looked up at him. He was looking into the fire.

"And do you hate me still?"

"I do not hate you. You… do not need to leave," he said suddenly, haltingly, "when we cross into Austria."

"Good," Lust said, smiling against him in the darkness. "I wasn't planning on it, anyway."

center /center

"Aye, there's a girl running out into the road! Hold up, Scar!"

Scar stopped the automobile, scowling at the interruption. They didn't have much further to go. Lust placed her hand over his, eyes narrowed on the woman who was flagging them down. It was another gypsy, a young one. Scar's expression softened when he saw.

"Excuse me!" The gypsy girl approached them, huffing as though she'd been running. "My friends and I need a ride. Could we…?"

"We can't pick up stragglers," Scar said, gruffly, but Lust knew that his heart wasn't in it.

"Please? We need to get out of Munich…"

He sighed and closed his eyes, as though in thought. "We're going to Austria." Scar's voice was stiff. "How many are you?"

"Just three," she said, smiling hopefully. Scar looked to Lust, clearly not in the mood to take on more passengers.

"She's just a child," Lust said, shrugging. A few more didn't matter to her. They were all strays, weren't they? And they were gypsies. She knew that Scar's duty to his people - be they Ishbalan or Roma - would win out in the end. He nodded stiffly, once to her and once to the girl.

"Thank you!" The girl beamed and turned, waving towards her unseen companions. Two young men, light of hair and eyes, crested the hill at the side of the road. Lust's eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed. Familiar faces weren't always what they appeared in this place, she reminded herself. Scar tensed beside her, his expression grim. A tightness came over his lips. Twin looks of confusion, fear and then delight passed over the young men's features, and Lust only smiled. Sometimes, familiar faces were exactly what they seemed. They hesitated, however, until Scar jerkily motioned for them to get in back.

"We'll take you to beyond the border," Scar grumbled. "No further." Lust laughed and ran a hand through her hair. She had heard that before. It didn't matter. She would gladly take the boys wherever they wanted to go. Germany was nearly behind them now, and she was ready to forget those filthy, lifeless days in Berlin. It hardly mattered to her where they went, or who they took with them. And she felt, in some part of her, that she owed these boys something. After all, she thought as the automobile sputtered back into life and Scar's thigh pressed warmly against hers, it was because of them that she had finally found a life worth living and the love of the scarred man.


End file.
